Foreigners Make Up 15% of the Czech Workforce

Statistics show that 15% of the employees who work in the Czech Republic are foreigners, and they constitute a substantial number across various sectors.

In the past decade, from 2010 to 2019, the number of foreigners in the Czech labor market has tripled. Evidently, the Covid-19 crisis had interrupted this growth, but it has only been a temporary stunt.

These figures have been drawn up from statistical records documented by the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ).

Dalibor Holý, from the ČSÚ, has commented that the number of employees would not have increased without the presence of foreigners, and he correlates this statement to the fact that many Czech citizens are seniors and past their prime, while young adults and those who are fit to work constitute a much smaller number of the Czech populace.

“From 2010 to 2019 the number of foreign employees increased by 407,000, while the number of Czech employees decreased by 63,000”, said Dalibor.

Industries that have seen a rise in the number of foreign workers include the agriculture and forestry industry, with a rise from 4 to 17% since the past decade.

Meanwhile, in administration, 54% of the workers in 2019 were foreigners. In construction, foreigners now make up 28% of the workers. It was only 14% in 2010. Moreover, in the manufacturing industry, the percentage increased from 6 to 16%.

Foreigners are apparently seeking jobs in education, healthcare, social care, science, information, and communications. “Dominantly foreigners are heading where the language barrier is not important, that is, into the working-class professions”, said Holý.

He’s also stated that there is a group of highly qualified expert foreigners in the Czech Republic in the field of information technology.

In 2020, at the end of the year, labor offices have registered 644,164 foreign employees in the Czech Republic.

Ukrainians, Vietnamese, and Russians constitute the larger numbers of foreigners in the Czech Republic, but in real-time, the foreign populace is much more diverse.